If Samsung had managed to release the immensely promising, but ultimately slightly disappointing F700 earlier then it wouldn't have been labelled an iPhone wannabe and looked an awful lot better for that. Have lessons been learnt...?

Well, with the announcement today of the 'F490' Samsung certainly looks to have hit the books since this time round it has come up with a handset that marries the killer combo of HSDPA connectivity and a 5MP camera with killer good looks and svelte lines.

Key most in the style stakes is Samsung's decision to go with an even larger 3.2in 262k touchscreen display - almost up there now with the iPhone's class leading 3.5 incher - while dimensions of 115 x 53.5 x 11.8mm mean physically it is almost identical to Apple's pride and joy and at just 102g it is a whole 33g lighter.

In multimedia terms this is no slouch either, it can playback VGA reolution videos at 30fps and handle WMV and MPEG4 formats along with the obligatory MP3, AAC and WMA audio ones. Video recording is slightly disappointing managing just 15fps at 320 x 240 pixels but at least it's there and the interface mimics the F700's successful 'cross' system. A web browser capable of full page rendering mobile-Safari-style is in there too along with a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth with full A2DP.

Opting out of one fight however is Samsung's decision to integrate just 130MB of onboard memory, but a trusty microSD slot means there's (quite literally) room for expansion.

Topping this all off is an anticipated February release date though the 530€ RRP suggests you'll want to get it on contract.